Teenagers elope and come home pregnant

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Parents of pregnant girls resort to blackmail - Some parents demand money from boyfriends' families

By SHARIN SHAIK newsdesk@thestar.com.my

KUALA LUMPUR: Girls as young as 14 are eloping with their boyfriends, some of them returning home pregnant.

Several parents of the pregnant underage girls are then demanding unreasonable compensation of up to tens of thousands of ringgit from the families of the boyfriends.

“In 2010, 16 cases of girls running away with their boyfriends were reported to the department,” said MCA Public Services and Com­plaints Department head Datuk Michael Chong

“All these girls were aged between 14 and 19. In three of these cases, the girls came home pregnant.
“In some cases, distraught parents would blackmail the boyfriend’s family to avoid them being reported to the police.”

He said that in one case, the family of a pregnant 14-year-old girl demanded RM15,000 from the parents of her 17-year-old boyfriend.

Chong said that in such cases, both parties are responsible and parents should not have allowed their children to get into such situations in the first place.

Ooi Bee Poh, 48, who was at the press conference yesterday is another parent who is looking for her missing daughter.

Her youngest daughter Wong Choi Ting, 17, went missing after a visit from her boyfriend from Johor.
“She was supposed to send her boyfriend to the bus station after his two-day visit to our home,” said a distraught Ooi.

However, she was told by her second daughter that Choi Ting had packed her clothes and said she was leaving.

Ooi has not been able to contact her daughter since Dec 30 as her handphone has been switched off.
According to Chong, Choi Ting is just one of three cases reported in the past 10 days.